Ambition Shot
by Hannah Faror
Summary: "'Just don't get yourself killed, okay' 'I'll try my hardest,' I said with a smile. With that, I left the store for the day." Later that day, Keiko is shot dead. These are Keiko's adventures in the Reaper's Game, learning who she really is inside. R&R
1. Prologue

**Yo, I'm back! Hahaha! So I've fallen in love with The World Ends With You and I decided to write my experience in the Reapers game… yeah it's not very original I know but I really wanted to write it. If you don't like it, then don't read it. It's a good story though, so I think you should. Old characters will be coming back, so it's not just my OC's. Eh, R&R and if you like it, favorite it. Thank you!**

**Hannah Faror**

-PROLOGUE-

I heard the rain falling- but I couldn't feel it. I saw it, falling, falling, an incessant downpour. The raindrops didn't form puddles though. They absorbed into the ground. Some landed on my face- they were warm. I tasted them on my lips to find them salty. It was then I realized they were tears. And a voice- I heard a voice calling out to me. "Kei…" it called. "Kei… Keiko-chan!"

And then I fell onto my right side and woke up in the flower shop.

"What happened?" I asked, drowsy.

"You fell asleep. _Again_," the voice continued. I looked to see my friend, Emiri-chan.

"Oh, hello Emi-chan. Is it time for closing?" I asked her. She face palmed.

"Do you _try_ to get yourself fired? Do you sleep at night?" she demanded.

"Yeah, why?" Poor Emiri. She sighed.

"Never mind. Just truest me, you're not going to keep your job long if you keep falling asleep like this," she told me.

"Calm down," I said, standing. I helped her close up shop. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm always tired. I can't help it!"

"You're a weird one alright," Emiri told me. "Falling asleep anywhere you feel like, dying your hair an unnatural color-"

"It is natural!" I protested, dropping a basket I held.

"The green sure isn't," she replied. I picked my basket back up and put it away. "I wish you'd be more careful," she went on.

"I am careful." Emiri gave me a look of disbelief. "For the most part." She sighed.

"Just don't get yourself killed, okay?"

"I'll try my hardest," I said with a smile. With that, I left the store for the day.

Around me I heard the voices of those more fortunate than I. People who had dreams, people who had hope. All I had was the clothes on my back and a life worth forgetting. I'd always wanted to make an impact on people's lives, it was just I had given up on that dream. How could I, the daughter of a flower shop owner, ever change the world?

As I was pondering these things, I bumped into someone. I began to apologize, when saw his gun. I heard the noise, and then felt the pain in my side. I was on the ground. "Who the hell are you and what gives you the right to fuc- ow!" I shrieked.

"I don't give answers," he said. He then shot me in the heart and I closed my eyes.


	2. Chapter 1

**Gah, I am certainly in love with the dream sequence beginning! Hahaha! Well thank you for reading the prologue and thank you for even considering reading chapter 1! You fans are the best, really! **

**Hannah Faror**

-CHAPTER ONE-

_It's cold. _

_I wonder if he'll be at work today._

_I can't believe she's wearing that!_

_What should I do tonight?_

_Only two more days…_

I opened my eyes. I found myself on the ground. "Did I fall asleep here?" I asked. I smiled a grim smile. "Sounds just like me." I heaved myself up and looked around. "That's a little odd… I would've expected someone to do something about it…" I noticed something on the ground and I picked it up.

_This coffee is so good!_

I recoiled and dropped it. "What?" There was a voice in my head. When I picked it up again, I was sure I heard the voice again. "So I'm hearing voices… That would also be like me." Upon close inspection, I found the thing to be a pin. I fastened it onto my skirt and looked around. I was still in Japan, so I must have just fallen asleep or something. "Oi," I called to a girl walking past me. "Can you tell me…?" She walked past me as though I weren't there. "Rude." I tried another girl, but got the same reaction. I sighed. "It's like some bad anime or something…"

At that moment, someone had bumped into me.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry!" she said. I turned to see a short girl behind me.

"Wait, you see me?" I asked. She nodded as though this were a strange concept.

"Of course I do. Why wouldn't I- look out!" She immediately pushed me down and started throwing fire.

"Wait a sec-" I said slowly. "Did you just throw fire?" I demanded.

"Do you _want_ the Noise to get you?" she demanded.

"What noise?"

"The Noise. Evil creatures created by the Reapers in order to kill us."

My heart stopped. "Wh-what?"

"There's no time for explanations right now, let's just go!" she said, dragging me.

"Wait!" I protested but she dragged me along behind her. "Can you at least tell me where we're going?"

"Hachiko!" she told me. "We gotta get you a partner, fast…"

What the hell was going on?

We arrived in front of a statue in the next area over. She stopped a minute to breathe.

"Hey, are you alright? I was worried when you ran off…" said a boy coming up to us.

"Hold up I don't-" I began but was cut off.

"Sorry, we got separated. And I found this rogue and I couldn't leave her," the girl was saying. "We have to get her to make a pact quickly!"

"I think we got our partner right here," the boy said. He stepped aside to reveal a brown haired boy.

"Good. You two go pact. Now!" the girl shoved me into the boy.

"Okay, ready? What's your name?" the boy said. I stood there speechless.

"Just say you'll accept, dammit!" the other guy said.

"What do I accept? "

"Just do it!"

"Fine, fine, I accept your pact!" I took the boy's hand and all of a sudden blue light shone. I took a step back. "What was that?" I asked. Once again I was ignored and pushed along to a completely new area. When I got there, there was a sudden relief from everyone.

"Could you PLEASE explain where the HELL I AM?"

Six eyes stared at me.

"You don't know?" the boy I had just made a 'pact' with asked.

"Hey, hey, you didn't know until I told you," the girl said.

"We should explain… but where to start?" the other boy said.

"Slow up," I said. "Let's start with names, shall we?"

"Sato Asuka," the girl said. She had short purple hair and bright blue eyes. She wore a white cap, with buckles and such on it. Her clothes were skater; a sporty tank top with a dark green jacket over it. Her pants were black, baggy jeans, and her shoes were green converse. Her style clashed with mine, as I had black hair other than my green bangs. I wore a poofy black skirt and a black top with a white lace pattern on it. I was very into goth lolita.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Suzuki Haru," said the boy. He himself had blonde hair that just passed his ears with bangs to the sides, and eyes of the sea, a stormy blue green. He also had the skater style, with a large black sweatshirt and baggy blue jeans.

The third boy smiled at me. "My name is Ono Ryuu," he told me. His brown hair had a slight curl to it and he had bright green eyes that reminded me of my own. He wore a flannel shirt and a pair of loose but not baggy jeans. "Okay, thank you that clears up so much," I said. I introduced myself as Fujiwara Keiko. "My friends call me-" I began then stopped. I was going to say my nickname, Kei, but only Emiri called me that. "Never mind."

"Do you remember how you got here?" Haru asked. I shook my head then tried to think. And then I remembered_. "I don't give answers…" _

"That bastard shot me!" I shrieked. "I'm freaking dead? Then how am I still in Japan? Is this hell? Wouldn't surprise me. Always was for me. And-"

"Whoa, slow down, Fujiwara-chan," Ryuu attempted to calm me.

"This isn't hell," Asuka said with a small laugh. "However you could certainly call this purgatory."

"What?" I asked.

"We're all the dead," Ryuu told me. "Everyone with a player pin like this is a dead man." He showed me a black pin with a gray skull on it.

"So what, the other people around us don't see us?" I demanded.

"Exactly. We're invisible," Haru told me. I thought a minute.

"Under other circumstances I might not believe you but now…" I sighed. My eyes widened as I remembered that I was dead. "Emiri-chan…" I mumbled. "I'm so sorry…"

"But don't worry," Asuka said to me. "We're going to fix this all!"

"What?" I demanded. "How?

"We're playing the Reapers Game right now- the reapers come after us and try to finish us off. If we get erased we lose. Haru-kun and I… we've played the Game before," she went on. "Every time you enter the game you get a chance at coming back to life. However, something is taken from you, called your 'Entry fee.'"

"So what's my entry fee?" I asked.

"Whatever you hold dearest to you," Haru explained. Everyone had a grim look on their faces all of a sudden. I assumed it was because they had all thought about their entry fees. I tried to think of what was dearest to me, but I couldn't think of anything. Nothing was important to me, other than being remembered. So what, no one in the real world would remember me? I was fine with that.

"How do we win the game?" I asked, changing the topic.

"Defeat the game master on the last day. The game master gives out the missions for each day. If you don't complete each mission, you lose," said Ryuu. I sighed. This was almost too much for me. "You look stressed… go take a few minutes to unwind if you like. Just stay in the area. We're at the 104 building area. Walk around. In my experience it clears my head. You might want to try it."

I did so gladly. I started to walk about ignoring what Ryuu had said about staying in the area. Looking at everyone and their partners made me angrier and angrier. They all seemed so okay with things, just like it was okay that they were dead. I felt sick. I kept walking, and as I did I thought. The more I thought, the sicker I felt. I wanted to know what my entry fee was. Being remembered didn't seem right… there had to be something else.

I bumped into someone in the midst of my thinking. I apologized subconsciously, and then realized he had reacted to my bumping into him. "Can you see me?" I asked him.

He nodded. "What do you want?" he asked.

"Rude much?" I snapped back at him. "I was just surprised." He had shaggy black hair and deep red eyes. I also saw large, metallic wings on his back.

"You… don't you have a partner?" he asked.

"Yeah but he's at the 104 building," I said. It suddenly occurred to me that I couldn't remember the boy's name.

"That's the dumbest thing I've heard," he said to me.

"Excuse me?" I demanded.

"Leaving the safe zone without your partner… a reaper could just scoop you up any second," he told me. He had a grin on his face. "Well, this is why I'm here. To dispose of the riff raff like yourself who put up no fight whatsoever." He started laughing. "You almost remind me of the Composer!"

"What's that?" I demanded, ignoring the fact that he seemed intent on killing me.

"The Composer is the big boss. He runs the Game to his wishes," the boy said. "However, I don't think you need to worry about him much longer. You'll be dead in two seconds." He leapt back, and pulled out a gun. He started to shoot, but beams of light energy came out instead of bullets. I dodged quickly, not wanting to be hit.

"Damn you, quit it!" I yelled at him.

"You're an idiot!" he hissed back in glee. "You just killed yourself _and _your partner!"

"What?" I asked. He fired a charged up shot and I rolled to the right.

"Without your partner, you're nothing!" he elaborated. I sighed. That must have been why my partner had told me not to leave the 104 building. Of course it was. I was just so stupid.

Thank God a figure appeared in front of me.

"Back off!" a voice called and started throwing bolts of electricity at the red eyed boy. I recognized him as my partner but I still couldn't remember his name. He was now attacking viciously, without stop. The red eyed boy only laughed and parried attacks.

I thought. What could I do? The only thing I understood was flowers. I looked on my skirt and found five buttons on the hem. Why hadn't I seen these before? One of them was the skull pin; another was green with swirls on it. Another was a bright purple flower, then there was a curling thorn on one, and the last had a river on it. I had no idea what they did, but I grabbed the swirling one and roots began to appear out of the ground. I gasped. They were going toward the boy and they grabbed at him, holding him back and tying him up. He burned through them with fire, and then jumped into the air with his wings, laughing once again.

"I've never seen pins that do that… Well this should be an interesting game!" he said. The boy smirked. "Tallyho," he called as he flew off.

My partner and I stared as he left. After he was gone, the boy turned to me. "I told you not to leave the area… why did you?" he scolded.

"I don't know, I'm stupid," I told him, now ashamed.

"I'm so happy you're okay," he said.

"Yeah, so you don't die," I told him.

"What?"

"Face it…" I would have said his name but I couldn't remember it still. "Face it! You don't care about the actual me; you just need me for my powers! That's how I am with you, and I bet that's how everyone in this damn purgatory works! I don't even remember your name, so I can bet you don't remember mine! We're just pawns for each other, and I'm sure because-"

"Fujiwara Keiko."

"What?"

"Your name is Fujiwara Keiko," the boy said. "And I'm Ono Ryuu. But you can call me Ryuu-kun."

I stood speechless. Did he really care about me? Had he really remembered my name? Ryuu smiled. "I'm sorry…" I said quietly.

"Trust your partner," he told me. "That's what Haru-kun and Asuka-chan told me. And I trust you, so I think you should trust me."

I nodded slowly, and then hung my head. "You must think I'm so stupid.

"Hasty, sure. Rash, unthinking, impulsive, spontaneous, yeah, all of the above. But not stupid," he told me. I smiled a bit. He cocked his head. "Hey, do that again."

"What?" I asked.

"Smile." Embarrassed, I covered my mouth and cheeks with my hands. "That's nothing to be embarrassed of," he told me.

"No…" I said, becoming shy all of a sudden. He laughed, and then led me back to the 104 building.

"I found her!" Ryuu called to the other two, whose names I only remembered because Ryuu had just said them. A wave of guilt covered me.

"Keiko-chan!" Asuka called.

"Fujiwara-chan," Haru said, looking relieved. We met them at last.

"We were so worried when you left off by yourself, you have no idea," Asuka told me.

"Are you alright?" Haru asked.

"I'm fine," I told him. "Just met up with some bastard who tried to kill me."

"A reaper?" Asuka said. "How are you still alive?"

"I came just in time," Ryuu explained. "She's got an interesting combat mode."

"Ooh really?" Asuka asked. "What is it?"

They were quiet and I realized Ryuu wanted me to explain. "I use flowers," I said. "No big de-"

"Wow!" Asuka interrupted. "That's so cool! I use words, nothing special. Haru-kun is a really good marksman and so he fuses the pins with a gun and shoots out things at the Noise."

"That's cool!" I said.

"Thanks," he said.

"And I like to use different pins combined to fight," Ryuu told me. "That's the most common way to fight." I nodded.

"So what's our mission for today?" I asked suddenly. They stared at me. "What? You keep staring at me, its freaking me out!"

"Get to the 104 building. You didn't notice?" Asuka asked.

"No…" I said.

"Look at your phone." I did, and found a message:

"Rendezvous: noun. To meet or come together at a common place. Sixty minutes. Fail and face erasure. –The reapers."

"Weird," I said. "I wonder why I missed that earlier.

"We figured a common place was the 104 building, so we came here after finding each other," Asuka said. I nodded.

Maybe I could live with this for now. I was with good enough people, and I just had to last seven days- er, six now- right? It couldn't be that hard. I decided to stick with it and in my mind I told Emiri I would be back soon enough.


	3. Chapter 2

**Alright, got chapter one up! Nice!**

… **I don't have much to say, lol!**

**Hannah Faror **

**0-0-0-0-0**

-CHAPTER TWO-

"We were just at the 104 building!" I protested. "How the hell did we get back here?" I'd suddenly just woken up with the others at Scramble Crossing.

"It does that… every day the game is somewhat reset and we wake up here," Asuka told me. I nodded. There was a beep. "Oh… the mission."

I looked at my phone to find another message: "Obliterate: verb. To remove or destroy all traces of. 600 minutes. Fail and face erasure. –The Reapers."

I felt a searing pain on my hand and looked to see a timer counting down five hours. "So that's how long we have to figure this out?" I asked.

"Yeah," Haru told me. "I think we're fighting something today." This was more to Asuka and Ryuu than me.

"That would make sense," Asuka answered. "It seems like the easy missions to start out."

"Sato-san," I began but Asuka cut me off.

"Asuka-chan," she corrected. "Call me Asuka-chan please. I'm only a year older than you, you know."

"Alright, then you call me Keiko-chan," I told her. She nodded with a smile. "Asuka-chan," I tried again, "you said yesterday… you said you want to fix this. You sounded like you were going to do more than get your life back…" She smiled a grim smile.

"Yeah. I am going to do more than get my life back. Haru-kun and I… we're-"

"Yo, chicas! Hurry up or we'll leave you behind!" Haru called. Asuka and I followed- I would ask her later. "The question is what are we obliterating and where?"

"Right. We could do a scan for Noise," Asuka said.

"Scan?" I asked.

"If you use the pin, you can scan people's minds and you can find the Noise. Sometimes destroying Noise will be part of a mission," Haru told me. Ryuu and I nodded. So I held the pin in my hand and did a scan. I didn't see any of the monsters I had seen the day before.

"I don't see anything," Ryuu told us.

"Me either," Asuka said. I stopped the scan. "Should we check another area?"

"That seems to be the only option," Haru decided. I followed him and the others to the entryway to the 104 building but an invisible force knocked us back. "A wall?" he said. Asuka explained to me how some areas were off limits to us during missions. "Now what?" he looked around and his eyes focused on a figure. The boy had a red sweatshirt with a hood pulled up over his eyes. "Yo, reaper!" We walked over to the red guy.

"Want past the wall?" the red guy said. "Then defeat the Noise."

"There aren't any Noise!" Asuka protested.

"Then you better go find it," he said.

"Dumbass," Ryuu mumbled as we walked away.

"Well now what?" I asked.

"I guess we'll have to scan the areas we can to find the Noise," Haru said. "Time to split up. Hope we see you guys later."

"Yeah," Ryuu said.

"Wait, I have to talk to Asuka-chan!" I countered, but they were gone by now.

"What are you gonna talk to Asuka-chan about?" Ryuu asked. I sighed.

"I wanna know what she and Suzuki-kun are up to…" I said warily. "They strike me as the odd type… don't you think?" From his reaction, he clearly didn't. I sighed again. "Never mind, let's just go look." I lead the way to Spain Hill.

We searched for a long time without finding anything. I began to grow impatient. "There's got to be something we're missing," Ryuu said. We searched just about every area, then met back up at scramble crossing. We found Asuka and Haru.

"Figure it out yet?" Asuka asked.

"No," I complained. "It's making me mad."

"Us too," Haru said. Asuka looked at him disapprovingly. "Okay, _I'm _getting mad. Not Asuka-chan." Asuka laughed.

"That's cause Haru-kun's such a good nii-san!" Asuka sang.

"Wait, huh?" I asked.I looked at the two. "You're siblings?"

They looked at me, then eachother, then laughed. "Nah, we're just really close," Asuka told me with a smile. "Ever since Haru-kun saved me last game."

"What happened?" I asked.

"There's a rogue Reaper…" Haru told me. "Out to make the game more… interesting as he says. Asuka-chan was desperate for a partner last time… he had cornered her and was about to finish her off when I found them."

"Haru-kun swooped in and helped me beat him up!" Asuka said, clearly proud of their feat. "He really is a great nii-san." She smiled sweetly. I nodded.

"What was the guys name?" I asked. "I mean, he could still be out there, right?"

"Kuro-hane," Asuka said. "That's what he told me. I doubt that's his real name though…"

"Interesting name…" I said, thinking to myself. "What did he look like?" Asuka shook her head.

"I don't know," she told me. "Sorry."

"Its okay," I told her. I sighed, then looked at my hand. "HOLY FRICK!" I screamed, catching myself from swearing just in time.

"What?" Asuka demanded. She then looked at her hand. Once she had she began murmuring Kuso repeatedly to herself.

"We have a half hour left! How the hell are we supposed to fight the Noise if we can't even find it?" I demanded.

Haru sighed. "Okay, I didn't want to have to use this but I will," he said to us. He pulled a pin out of his pocket. It had a sword on it and I stared.

"What?" I asked.

"A keypin."

"Haru-kun, that's brilliant! Why didn't you tell me you had one?" Asuka demanded.

"I thought it would be cheating…" hetold us.

"Why do you care about cheating in this game?" Asuka demanded. "It's already screwed up as it is…"

"Guys!" Ryuu shouted. "Half hour! What the hell is keypin?"

"Right right…" Haru said. We walked up to the wall and he held out the keypin, but nothing happened."Eh… what?" Suddenly the keypin disappeared. "What?"

I began screaming swears. "What the hell do we do now?" I demanded. I happened to look down at my hands and once I had gotten a hold of what I saw, I stopped with a sigh. "Okay, this is pissing me off now."

"What?" Ryuu asked. He looked at his hands. "Oh… the clock is gone?"

The others looked at their hands. "Someone else must have gotten a keypin… and the GM probably deleted the keypin data after the Noise at the 104 building was erased…" Haru murmured.

"Well now what?" asked Asuka.

"I don't know," I told her. "I'm tired. Can we sleep?"

"Do you want to go shopping?" Asuka asked.

"I'm suddenly awake," I told her with a smile. Asuka laughed and we set off in the direction of the main shopping district while the boys, groaning, followed us.

**(... sorry its sort of short... I'll get to Neku and the gang next chapter! I promise!)**


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